The West of the
North Island saw higher rainfall, with 15-40 millimetres
from Northland to Waitomo down through to Taranaki. The West
Coast, which applied for drought status last week, received
20-40 mm with more expected to come. The East Coast fared
the worst, experiencing no substantial rains, MetService
says.

"Where we've had rainfall of 20mm it's been a
huge help but some areas have had as low as 2mm," Kelly told
BusinessDesk. "What we need now is steady rain, not too
heavy or it will wash away the top soil, and a moderate
temperature for the grass to grow."

Finance Minister Bill
English says the impact of drought could erase $2 billion
from gross domestic product, as milk production and pasture
dry up and farmers send more livestock for processing.
That’s up from the government’s estimate of $1 billion
just a week ago. The impact could be multi-year as farmers
have to rebuild herds and flocks.

Already the effects of
prolonged dry weather have been felt in sales of Fonterra
Cooperative Group’s dairy products through the
GlobalDairyTrade platform, with prices jumping 10.4 percent
in the last sale two weeks ago. The next auction is
scheduled for March 19.

Predicted showers today and
tomorrow are hoped to bring more relief although the
weekend’s rains may have been the heaviest for
now.

"There will be a few showers sticking around, but for
most of the country high pressure returns from midweek
through to the end of the week and the weather will be
pretty settled and dry," says MetService acting
communications meteorologist John Law.

Rain has arrived in
the first month of autumn and to be useful it needs to fall
before temperatures being to chill, Kelly said.

A steady
soil temperate of above 9 degrees Celsius and plenty of
moisture is necessary for grass growth, he said. “If the
temperature drops and we have a cold snap, even with rain
the grass won't grow."

Landcorp manages 135 properties and
1.5 million stock units throughout the country, according to
its website.

Phillip Duncan from privately owned
forecaster Weatherwatch says weather patterns look promising
for gradual easing, with improvements in each region rather
than big low fronts of the kind that brought the weekend
rain.

"In the next two to four weeks there will be
showers popping up a lot more often,” he said. “It's a
positive change we're seeing, it's just taking a long time
for the change to happen."

The highs that have
dominated the weather system are forecast to ease in length
and frequency. The distance between the past two highs was
only 6,500 kilometres, but the distance between the last
high and the high coming in on Tuesday is 9,000 km, he
said

"The greater the gap between highs, the greater
chance for these rainmaking systems to come in," he
says.

Georgina Griffiths, from NIWA, says that the
long range forecast for March, April and May shows a return
to normal weather patterns when the highs lose their grip,
with a warm start to autumn.

"There should be some
reasonably heavy rainfall across autumn, with rain becoming
more regular as autumn progresses and there should be a
return to normal rainfall patterns," she says.

While
the drought will affect the agricultural sector financially,
the fine weather has led to buoyant consumer confidence
which may offset the negative impact on the economy,
according to Robin Clements of UBS.

Additionally,
farmers who have cut down their stock levels have led
freezing works across the country to work overtime to cope
with the influx.

The Wellington-based BusinessDesk team led by former Bloomberg Asian top editor Jonathan Underhill and Qantas Award-winning journalist and commentator Pattrick Smellie provides a daily news feed for a serious business audience.

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